at the Spaniards were in no condition to attempt to regain
the island. Cuba, the nearest Spanish territory to Jamaica, was being
ravaged by the most terrible pestilence known there in years, and the
inhabitants, alarmed for their own safety, instead of trying to
dispossess the English, were busy providing for the defence of their own
coasts.[127] In 1657, however, some troops under command of the old
Spanish governor of Jamaica, D. Christopher Sasi Arnoldo, crossed from
St. Jago de Cuba and entrenched themselves on the northern shore as the
advance post of a greater force expected from the mainland. Papers of
instructions relating to the enterprise were intercepted by Colonel
Doyley, then acting-governor of Jamaica; and he with 500 picked men
embarked for the north side, attacked the Spaniards in their
entrenchments and utterly routed them.[128] The next year about 1000
men, the long-expected corps of regular Spanish infantry, landed and
erected a fort at Rio Nuevo. Doyley, displaying the same energy, set out
again on 11th June with 750 men, landed under fire on the 22nd, and next
day captured the fort in a brilliant attack in which about 300 Spaniards
were killed and 100 more, with many officers and flags, captured. The
English lost about sixty in killed and wounded.[129] After the failure
of a similar, though weaker, attempt in 1660, the Spaniards despaired of
regaining Jamaica, and most of those still upon the island embraced the
first opportunity to retire to Cuba and other Spanish settlements.

As colonists the troops in Jamaica proved to be very discouraging
material, and the army was soon in a wretched state. The officers and
soldiers plundered and mutinied instead of working and planting. Their
wastefulness led to scarcity of food, and scarcity of food brought
disease and death.[139] They wished to force the Protector to recall
them, or to employ them in assaulting the opulent Spanish towns on the
Main, an occupation far more lucrative than that of planting corn and
provisions for sustenance. Cromwell, however, set himself to develop and
strengthen his new colony. He issued a proclamation encouraging trade
and settlement in the island by exempting the inhabitants from taxes,
and the Council voted that 1000 young men and an equal number of girls
be shipped over from Ireland. The Scotch government was instructed to
apprehend and transport idlers and vagabonds, and commissioners were
sent into New England and to the